Free Online Course on Wiretaps to Big Data

Cornell University is offering free online course on Wiretaps to Big Data: Privacy and Surveillance in the Age of Interconnection. In this course students will explore all of these questions while investigating related issues in WiFi and Internet surveillance.

In this six-week course, applicants will explore the privacy issues of an interconnected world. This course will start on October 3, 2017.

Providers’ Details

Cornell University, a world renowned and diverse Ivy League institution, is a community of scholars known for intellectual rigor and engaged in deep and broad research, teaching tomorrow’s thought leaders to think otherwise, care for others, and create and disseminate knowledge with a public purpose.

About This Course

How does cellular technology enable massive surveillance? Do users have rights against surveillance? How does surveillance affect how we use cellular and other technologies? How does it affect our democratic institutions? Do you know that the metadata collected by a cellular network speaks volumes about its users?

Why Take This Course?

The course will include broad overviews for the novice, while pointing to the detailed resources needed for those engaged in the development of corporate or governmental policies.

Learning Outcomes

The basic function of cellular telephone networks, WiFi, and other networking technologies.

The evolution of privacy rights through the U.S. constitution’s 4th amendment, particularly as applied to content and context surveillance.

Types of cryptography used to secure wired and wireless networks.

The implications of different forms of surveillance and their impact on an individual’s privacy in society.

Contemporary surveillance and security decisions/laws.

How to apply ethical thinking and judgment to a wide range of privacy and surveillance situations.

The impact of using complex and powerful technologies to collect personal data on individuals, corporations, markets, and societies.

Instructors

Stephen B. Wicker

Stephen Wicker is a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Cornell University and a member of the graduate fields of computer science, information science, and applied mathematics. He teaches and conducts research in wireless information networks, cellular networks, and digital telephony.

Requirements

How To Join This Course

EdX offers honor code certificates of achievement, verified certificates of achievement, and XSeries certificates of achievement. Currently, verified certificates are only available in some courses.

Once applicant sign up for a course and activate their account, click on the Log In button on the edx.org homepage and type in their email address and edX password. This will take them to the dashboard, with access to each of their active courses. (Before a course begins, it will be listed on their dashboard but will not yet have a “view course” option.)